


Zugzwang

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Dark Dean Winchester, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Sam wasn't the Winchester the demon was after...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zugzwang

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vichan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vichan/gifts).



Sam was running for the gate with Bobby and Ellen. Dean took a step after his brother and then stopped, tightening his hand around the Colt. He hadn’t expected to see it again: figured the demon had destroyed it months ago along with Dad.

Flipping the chamber open, he peered inside. The last shot was still there: one bullet nestled in cold steel. Waiting.

Dean swallowed and looked up at the gate. At Sam and Ellen and Bobby fighting to shove the doors closed. He should tuck the Colt down the back of his jeans and help them. But his skin was prickling as though there was a low-level electrical current running through him, and he was done pretending he didn’t know what that meant. Too many people had already died over his refusal to acknowledge what was happening to him.

He turned, bringing the gun up and thumbing the safety off. Already knew that the demon was standing behind him before he saw it, grinning from some stranger’s face. Recognition. Electricity crackling along his skin. _I know you,_ Dean thought as he tightened his grip on the trigger, and then the Colt was jerked free from his hand.

“Boys shouldn’t play with Daddy’s guns,” the demon scolded.

Dean had time to think, _oh shi—_ , and then he was flying through the air, arms pinwheeling in a futile effort to break his fall. The demon’s power shoved him roughly into a tombstone and he smacked his head against it. At the impact, the world dissolved into a hot, nauseas wash of red. Dean could feel dry weeds and rocks against his back as he floundered around on the ground, trying to think past the pain pounding through his skull.

“Dean!” A familiar voice, panicked and coming from a distance.

All of Dean’s confusion coalesced into one bright, burning thought: _Sammy. Have to protect Sammy._ Blinking away the blood running into his eyes, he somehow managed to climb to his hands and knees. Okay, great. Now he just had to get up. Had to—

The demon was standing a few feet away from him, holding the Colt in its right hand, and now it raised its left. Power snaked out and shoved Dean back against the tombstone, the pressure forcing a grunt from his lungs. Looking past the demon, he saw his brother being held against a tree in a similar fashion. His pulse sped and, even though he already knew it was useless, he started struggling.

Sam. He had to get to Sam.

The yellow-eyed bastard crouched down in front of Dean—the gun so damned _close_ —and offered him a broad grin. “Well, well, well. Here we are again. Just like old times.”

“Let him go, you son of a bitch.”

“Don’t worry about him right now, kiddo.” It rocked back on its heels, tapping the barrel of the gun against its thigh. “You and I need to talk.”

“Fuck off.”

“Spunky. I always liked that about you, you know.”

Dean let his eyes slide past the demon and focused on his brother. Sam’s face was panicked and flushed, tiny flecks of Jake’s blood—good fucking riddance—still dark against his skin. His neck muscles worked as he tried to free himself.

The demon edged to the side, blocking off Dean’s view, and said, “I told you to stop worrying about Sammy. I’m not here for him.”

Dean snorted in disbelief, but a cold uneasiness pooled at the base of his spine.

The demon’s grin widened. “Ran into a friend of mine a few hours back. Made myself a little deal.”

Dean wasn’t going to take the bait. Wasn’t going to ask the question it obviously wanted him to ask. He swallowed and strained forward again.

Inching closer, the demon danced its yellow eyes over his skin. Assessing. Acquisitive. “You know how long I’ve been trying to get my hands on you?” it asked, and for a few seconds Dean forgot how to breathe.

 _Yes_ , he thought, and then, on the heels of that, _Fuck no._ But it was too late anyway: he was off the market. “Sorry, I’m already seeing someone,” he ground out.

“Not anymore, Dean,” the demon told him. It trailed the Colt along his throat, chuckling at the surge of fear in his eyes. “What, you didn’t think demons did a little inside trading?”

No. It wasn’t possible. He’d bargained himself away to that crossroads bitch, not this bastard. They couldn’t do what the demon was implying, could they? Couldn’t swap his soul around like kids trying to round out their baseball card collections?

“You know,” the demon mused. “I really thought you’d take the bait when we offered to give Daddy back. Guess you and John weren’t as close as I thought.”

Dean’s mouth opened, dry, and words tumbled out. “You son of a bitch.” It wasn’t a good comeback, not even close, but he couldn’t _think_.

“Mmm. I’ve waited so long for someone like you—you have no idea how hard it is to arrange for one of my children to get knocked up. Little bastards are a tad resistant to the whole parenting process. But you’re worth the wait: a seventh generation firstborn. You see, Dean—” It paused to lean forward and lick along the gash in his forehead, and Dean’s stomach turned over in revulsion. Settling back on its heels again, the demon continued, “My blood is your blood. You and I, we’re _real_ close.”

“You’re lying.” But how else was Dean going to explain the fact that he could sense the fucker? That he had felt it the night of the fire, and again in Palo Alto at Sam’s apartment? And then later, when it showed up in Salvation.

In the cabin with Dad.

The demon seemed to be following his train of thought—hell, for all Dean knew it was actually reading his mind—and now it said, “You know I’m not.”

“If you want me so bad, why the hell did you try to kill me?” He didn’t care, not really, but he needed to buy himself a little time. Needed to think of a way out of this clusterfuck.

The demon hummed a little under its breath. “Tough love, kiddo. You pissed me off, and nobody’s perfect.” It winked at him. “Besides, you don’t really think I’d have let you die, do you?”

No, he didn’t. Even then, with his blood running down his chest and his insides mashed to hell, pleading with his father to stop, there had been a part of Dean that had known. That had whispered, _it won’t kill me: it needs me too much._

He shoved that memory away. His mind was started to catch up to what the demon was telling him, and something was wrong. _It_ was wrong. “Dad wasn’t yours. No way in hell.”

The demon threw back its head and laughed. “Sammy didn’t tell you, did he? Been keeping a few secrets of his own.” Its face was dark with humor as it leaned closer. Skin like a furnace. Eyes gleeful.

“ _Mommy_ was mine, Dean. Sweet, golden-haired Mary. One of my children.”

Dean’s heart stuttered, and for a few seconds he thought that his ticker was going to take care of him before the demon could. Then his chest loosened and the moment passed.

“You’re mine, Dean,” the demon whispered. “I’ve owned your body since that bitch shoved you out naked and mewling from between her legs, and now I own your soul, too. Bartered and paid for in full.”

“I’ve got a year,” Dean said. It was hard to breathe. The demon was so close and that electric feeling in his skin was getting stronger. Something inside of him trying to reach out toward the yellow-eyed bastard.

“About that: I’m feeling a little impatient. I think I’m gonna collect now.”

Dean hid a relieved smile. If the demon broke its end of the deal—and Dean had to assume that it had been transferred intact—then he won. He got to keep Sam. Got to keep his own soul.

The demon’s power slithered out and encircled Dean’s neck like a noose, jerking a gasp out of him. “You think I’m that stupid?” it demanded. “I’m not breaking anything. We’re gonna make a new deal, you and me.” It shifted to one side, opening up Dean’s view of Sam again, and then said, “You give yourself up now and I won’t pop Sammy like a bug against that tree over there.”

“You can’t—”

“Sure I can,” the demon cut in smoothly. “The deal was to bring him back. You never said anything about _keeping_ him alive.”

Shit. It was right. He hadn’t. He hadn’t been thinking that far ahead: had been too hurt and lost to look beyond getting his brother back.

“So what do you say? You can have your year— _without_ Sammy—or you can join up now and save your little brother another ride to Hell. And this time it’ll be a one way ticket, I can promise you that.”

Sam’s eyes on him. Sam struggling like a pinned beetle to pull himself off of the tree. Sam, who had been dead yesterday and would be dead again in a few minutes if Dean didn’t do anything.

And really, what the hell, right? He would have been willing to do a direct swap in the first place. The year had been a gift.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, fine. You can have me. But you don’t touch Sam. Not now, not ever.”

“Deal,” the demon purred, and then it was leaning in closer. It was pressing its lips against his—God, fucking disgusting—and there was something flowing in through his mouth. Something foul and sooty that tasted like sulfur flooding his throat and sinking deep into his body.

And maybe he should have thought about the consequences of his decision more carefully because now that the demon was inside of him, Dean knew why it had been so fucking urgent about this. Why it had such a hard on for him.

Seventh generation of the demon’s ‘special’ kids: seventh in an unbroken line of firstborns. The damned thing had been breeding a vessel for itself. A human that it could never be thrown out of: one that would never flinch at the name of God, couldn’t be injured by rite or ritual. No, not just a vessel: a partner. The yang to its yin.

Instead of shoving Dean aside as it entered—instead of destroying him—it was merging with him. The demon was sinking into his soul as it filled his skin. It was changing him, burning the man he had been into a husk and then birthing something new from the ashes. Something loathsome and grinning with yellow, sickly eyes.

The demon’s old body dropped across Dean’s lap, lifeless and cold. He shoved it off and climbed to his feet, fighting down the urge to puke as the demon made itself at home. As it changed him.

Sam was free as well, was running toward him and calling his name in a voice that was two parts relieved and one part concerned. “Dean! God, Dean, are you okay? What happened? What—” Dean raised his head and Sam stuttered to a stop a few feet away. He shook his head slowly. Took a step back. “No.”

Dean grinned as the last shreds of his old self dropped away around him, and centuries of planning fell into place. “Howdy, Sammy.”


End file.
